


The True Meaning of Femininity

by Pearly_Pornography



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: Dank Supportive Loud Family, Gen, Self-Discovery, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 04:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12598344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearly_Pornography/pseuds/Pearly_Pornography
Summary: Lynn wants to know what being a woman means.





	The True Meaning of Femininity

Lynn had been a girl as long as her family could remember. (In fact, she'd been one before the bulk of her younger sisters were born.) She just woke up one morning, walked into the living room where the rest of her family was, and yelled.

"I'm a girl now! Get used to it."

(She then proceeded to kick a vase off of a nearby table.)

The change was minor, of course, at least in her mind it was. Her parents had to work out all the medical stuff, the discussions with doctors and psychologists and the like. She started puberty blockers when she was around 8, after letting her hair grow out for a few years. Then she insisted that her mother take a photo of her and Lincoln while they were in the bathtub, like a commemorative photo of sorts. 

A few years later, she hit her 13th birthday. And she only had one question on her mind. 

What is a girl, anyway?

She had figured and assumed that, at a time as simple as age 5, you could be a girl just by deciding. And nobody at home told her she was wrong. Nobody in school told her she was wrong. At least, not for a long time. Maybe it started that one time when she was 9, a year into her taking puberty blockers, when the girl with the locker next to her said, "My mother says you shouldn't take those meds. They're gonna screw up your body."

She didn't really get it. Early on in middle school, girls had started comparing their boobs. Of course, anyone above the age of 11 couldn't comprehend the importance of a boob size. To them, it was like they were planning their future. "Nobody's gonna like you if you're flat."

But, it was a test of her womanhood, and she would not back down.

"Hey, compare to me."

The girls scoffed.

"Lynn, you don't have boobs, you're not a girl."

"Yes I am."

"You're not! Go away, I know you wanna look at 'em."

Locker room problems were common. She'd blank-facedly stare at her gym teacher, and flatly say, "I am not a boy." Every time, the teacher would raise his arm, pointing to the men's locker like a dictator, and telling her to  _get her ass in there, or drag it to the principal's office._ (The principal was dumb, so she'd just take it, nestling herself in a corner between two lockers and changing out of her gym clothes where nobody could see. And sometimes when her back was bared, the boys would flick rubber bands at her before running away.

Early sex ed made her brain spin.  _Girls have vaginas, and boys have penises._ But she didn't feel like a boy, she just didn't.

Her thirteenth birthday came faster than she expected, and now she was blowing out candles and unwrapping Koy Detmer-signed footballs and cool new hockey gear. Even Lola wasn't too dumb to buy her something she'd want. She sat in her room, with Lucy across from her.

"What's it like being another year closer to death."

"Lucy, you don't gotta word it like that."

"...Is it fun?"

"I dunno." She paused. "What's it mean to be a girl?"

Lucy blinked. (Though her bangs hung thick over her eyes like a waterfall of ink, Lynn spent so much time in her presence that she could almost always tell what Lucy's eyes were doing.) "Like, is there... some secret to it?"

"...I don't know. I never thought about it." She shrugged. "Maybe Lincoln knows, he's not a girl, so maybe his perspective is different."

"Like, how lizards don't study lizards? Only humans study lizards?"

"Yeah..." Lucy clicked her feet together on the bed. "Why are you thinking about this, anyway?"

"I dunno. It's been buggin' me."

"If anyone's been bothering you, I can summon an eldritch being to consume their mortal soul."

"No, nobody's bothering me." (That was a lie, but she wanted nothing less than for Lucy to worry about her.) "Anyway, I'll go ask around, I guess. See you later?"

"Have a wonderful date of birth, Lynn."

"Love you."

-

She didn't go immediately to Lincoln's room. She needed a full perspective, at the very least.

"Lori! Leni!" Knock, knock, knock. Leni answered the door to her bedroom, with half of her face made-up and the other half unfinished.

"Hi."

"Can I come in for a second?"

"Loriii! Are you done trying on those bras!"

"Yeah, yeah, just gimme a damn second!" Lori was grumbling, and then came to the door in a bathrobe. "Lynn, what is it."

"I was wonderin' what it means to be a girl."

Lori blinked. Leni rose her hand.

"Leni, you don't need to do that."

"Oh!" Leni lowered her arm to her side. "Being a girl means you're a girl."

"That wasn't helpful at all." Lori sighed. "Okay, most of the girls I know... They like fashion and makeup stuff, I guess. They like boys."

"Luna likes boys and girls."

"I said most of them.  _Most of them._ I mean, some girls hate all that stuff."

"What do ya call a letter for a lady?  _Fe-mail!"_

Luan stuck her head in next to Lynn. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Lynn wants to know what it means to be a girl."

"Oh! I dunno, are you a girl?"

Lynn shrugged, and responded:

"I think so."

"Then you're a girl! Con-girl-atulations!" Luan blew a noisemaker and threw some confetti.

"Dudes, step aside." Luna shoved past Luan, who slipped on her confetti pile and landed on her ass. "Listen here, li'l sis, being a girl is like... a feeling, sometimes. Sometimes you just decide you're a lady or a dude, and that's cool. The important thing is that you're happy."

"But none of these are making any sense to me." Lynn ducked away from Luna. "I'm gonna try looking somewhere else."

"You're overcomplicating things, Lynn. It's not some big mystic thing, it's just like... a vibe."

"I don't get it." Her brain was beginning to pulse in her skull. 

-

"Lisa. Lisa!"

Lisa was the smart one, and now it was her turn. Lisa answered her bedroom door, holding a jar with an octopus arm inside.

"Hello. Ishh there shomethin you need?"

"Uh, I was just wondering. What's it mean to be a girl?"

"Well, thatsh a shimple queshtion with a complicated anshwer. Shientifically shpeaking, a female ish an animal or plant with ova that reshpond to male gametesh." Lynn stared at her blankly. Lisa rolled her eyes. "A vagina and ovariesh."

"But I don't--"

"Shee, there'sh the thing. Shome people, people like you, identify with a gender that ish not the one they were born with." Lisa cracked open a heavy dictionary. "Let me shee if I can find you the definition of female." She flipped through the pages, seeming to find it in no time. Lynn wondered how many times Lisa had read that huge book cover to cover. "One ish, 'denoting the shexsh that can produshe offshpring'. Then, 'relating to or characterishtic of women or female animalsh'. Then, 'a plant with a pishtil and no shtamen'..."

"This isn't very helpful."

"It'sh not a word that'sh eashy to define."

"Yes it is!" Lynn and Lisa turned to the door in terror. Lola and Lana stood next to one another, arms crossed and feet spread apart. Lola opened her mouth. "Girls are pretty princesses! They wear pink stuff and makeup and stuff! We're really pretty!"

"No!" Lana turned to her. "Girls like dirt and mud, and cool animals."

"No they don't! Girls like glitter and stuff!"

"Girls like frogs and jumpin' in mud puddles!"

"I'm right!"

"No, I'm right!"

"What's going on in here?"

Lincoln poked his head in. "Are you guys fighting over sandwiches again? Is Lisa tutoring you on science stuff, Lynn?"

"No, I--"

"She wants to know what a girl is!" Lola shouted. "And Lana is lying to her!"

"No I'm not!"

"Are so!"

"Am not!" 

"Are so!"

"Woah, woah, woah." Lincoln shushed the both of them. "You're both right."

"Wah?" The twins shouted in unison.

"Girls are just like boys, they can be whatever they want. It's just a label that some people identify with. Now please let me read my comics." He turned heel and left. Lynn stood for a moment. A girl can be whatever she wants, huh?

"...So I am a girl."

She grinned. "Even if I like playin' hockey, and I don't have boobs."

"Yeah, were you not sure?" Lola quirked a brow. "What else would you be?"

"I dunno!"

The meaning was that there was no meaning. The meaning was whatever Lynn wanted it to be. And if Lynn said that "Lynn was a girl", then she was. She was a girl all along. 


End file.
